


Coming Home

by IndigoNight



Category: White Collar
Genre: 4x02 Coda, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 05:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10269431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoNight/pseuds/IndigoNight
Summary: Peter promised El that he'd bring Neal home; El is not pleased when he doesn't fulfill that promise literally.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BuckytheDucky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckytheDucky/gifts).



> Dedicated to [BuckytheDucky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckytheDucky/pseuds/BuckytheDucky) for letting me relive my White Collar feels with them.
> 
> Enjoy!

It’s not like Neal _expected_ anything. His anklet is back on, and Diana drops him off at June’s. Peter goes home to El, as he should.

And Neal’s glad. He’s missed June and his little apartment; the view and his paints. It’s good to be back.

It’s also quiet.

But Ellen visits, and June pretends not to hover. And it’s not like Neal’s really up to going out or doing… anything, really. When there are others around he can downplay his leg, pretending it’s no more than an annoyance. But alone, laying in his bed - which is both achingly familiar and also somehow not quite right - the dull throb is relentless.

He’s lost track of how long he’s been lying in bed, staring up at the shadowy ceiling and riding the waves of pain and pain-killer induced nausea. He keeps half drifting off, imagining he can hear the echoes of the ocean outside his room, and then jerking back to reality when a car backfires on the street below. It’s going to be a very long weekend.

Distantly, he hears his phone going off. But he can’t remember where he left it and he can’t be bothered to move. He feels like he’s floating, lost and adrift; a dizzying mix of pain, aching loss, longing, relief-

His door opens. It doesn’t quite slam and it’s followed by two sets of footsteps. Part of him panics, the realization that he _can’t_ run hitting him like a sack in the stomach, but he feels both too heavy and too distant from his body to move anyway. And then there’s the fact that he knows those footsteps.

He doesn’t even open his eyes until a cool hand touches his face. He blinks, leaning in automatically to those long, gentle fingers and he can’t help but smile at the brush of soft hair and plush lips pressed briefly to his forehead. “Neal?” El’s voice is a low murmur, like she doesn’t quite want to wake him up.

“Hey,” he answers, flushing a little when his voice cracks. It’s been months and having her here, soft and warm and smelling so sweet is like heaven. He almost can’t remember not to give in to it, except there were two sets of footsteps. It take monumental effort, but he manages to shake off both his haziness and El’s touch enough to push himself into a sitting position. There’s Peter, leaning against the wall, watching them just like Neal expected. But then he manages to actually focus on El’s face and that’s an expression his knows - that’s her Peter-did-something-stupid look, Neal loves that look. But why is she sitting on his bed aiming that look at _him_?

“Come on, get up,” she says, sliding her arms under Neal’s shoulder as though she can hoist him to his feet on her own.

“Where’re we going?” he mumbles, leaning on her more heavily than he should but he knows she can handle it and the change in altitude is making the room spin sickeningly around him. “I thought we were taking the weekend off.”

“We are,” Peter confirms. El glowers at him and he moves forward, taking the bulk of Neal’s weight from her. And Neal lets him, even though he shouldn’t lean on Peter any more than he should on El.

El moves away long enough to grab Neal’s jacket and shoes. 

“Then what are you-?” Neal tries. His hand unconsciously finds its way to Peter’s chest, clutching at his shirt to help keep himself steady. The room has started to settle a little, but he still feels removed from his own body, heavy and clumsy.

“Peter made me a promise,” she says. Neal should be embarrassed to let her help him shuffle his feet into his shoes, but somehow it’s okay to lean on Peter’s broad shoulders and let her take care of him. When she’s done she sits back on her heels and smiles up at them. “He promised me he’d bring you home.” She purses her lips. “And then he went and left you alone.”

“I’m… I’m fine.” A part of Neal’s brain is screaming at him to shut up, to just let this happen.

“Clearly.” El sounds unimpressed, but her glower is aimed at Peter. She stands, hustling Neal into his jacket, and then inserting herself under his arm again.

Neal’s too busy trying not to obsess over how warm and reassuring it is to be held between them to process much of anything until he finds himself tilting sideways in the backseat of Peter’s car. He’s distantly aware of Peter grumbling - the easy kind of grumbling that has no real heat behind it - and El’s voice a combination of amusement and chiding as together they get Neal’s uncooperative body buckled in. He must have fallen asleep because his brain skips the entire car ride, checking back in in time for Peter to hoist him back out of the car. Except then Peter is all but carrying up the stairs and… and that soft fabric under his cheek is Peter and Elizabeth’s _bed_.

He doesn’t deserve this - not any more, probably he never really did. He’s done so much lying, hiding the u-boat treasure. He ran, without saying goodbye, never mind that Peter technically told him to do it. Peter had to search for him, catching - again - and is in trouble because of him - again. Neal should not be in their bed. He should not be letting Peter wrestle his jacket off again or El remove his shoes. He definitely should not be letting them pull the duvet up over him. And he absolutely, in no way, should be letting El tuck her head under his chin or Peter loop an arm around his waist.

But it’s so warm and comfortable, and exactly what his bed at June’s had been missing. Also, the pain pills have finally fully kicked in.

He’s asleep before he can even properly appreciate how comfortable he is.

*****  
Neal wakes up with a mouth that tastes like cotton and his hand cupped around an incredibly soft boob. He gets about fifteen seconds of hazy comfort, followed by an abrupt stab of panic because _this is not his bed_ , and that is not Maya cuddled up against him.

He tries to lurch upward, tries to scramble away, but he accidentally puts weight on his injured leg as he does it and the leg buckles under him. A grunt forces its way out of his mouth as he collapses back onto the mattress, trying not to clutch the wound.

“Now you need to stay put,” El chides, immediately awake and pulling Neal’s hands away from his leg. “And don’t give me that bullshit about being fine again.”

“Where-Where’s Peter?” he manages once the pain has dulled down again.

She smiles and tugs him in so that he has no choice but to rest his head on her shoulder. “He’s making us breakfast,” she says, running gentle fingers through his hair.

“He shouldn’t-” Neal mumbles, and maybe the pills haven’t completely worn off because it is far too easy to give in to her manipulation and curl up against her soft body. He also, apparently, can’t control his mouth.

“Shush,” El chides. She presses a chaste kiss to his temple and Neal has the vague urge to cry; he’d spent so long trying so hard not to think about how much he missed this, how he’d thought he could never have it again.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He really needs to get a damn grip on himself, but it’s so hard when El is soft and open and holding him close. He wants to bury himself in her, to cling and never let go.

“No,” El cuts him off, before his stupid mouth digs him in any deeper. “Peter told you to go, and you went. And now you’re home, which is what really matters.”

He can’t resist pressing his nose into her neck a little. “I missed you,” he admits, and that part is fully voluntary. Out of this whole mess, that is a simple, honest truth. She pulls back, but before he can panic she’s curling her fingers around his chin, tilting his face up and kissing him, slow and sweet.

“Hey now, you promised not to have any fun without me,” Peter chides, and Neal jerks back. It isn’t the first time, and Peter has been all too happy to watch him kiss El before, and there’s no real anger or jealousy in Peter’s voice. But Neal still can’t help the guilty flutter in the pit of his stomach, or the instinctive urge to apologise and run away.

Peter sets the tray he’s carrying down on the duvet, the three plates holding omelettes and three mugs of coffee carefully balanced on it. He then soundly cuts off Neal’s escape route by sliding into the bed on the opposite side from El. “Drink your coffee,” he says firmly, before Neal can try to apologise. He hands Neal a mug and settles back against the pillows, letting an arm drop along the line of the headboard so that his hand can rest on El’s shoulder - behind Neal’s back. 

El digs up the remote to the bedroom television and starts flipping through channels. Peter leans in, pushing a plate into Neal’s hand and pausing long enough to press a kiss to the corner of Neal’s lips. It isn’t much, just a brief brush of contact, but it settles something deep in the pit of Neal’s stomach and chases away the lingering echoes of waves in the back of his mind. And there Neal is, trapped in between them again; there’s nowhere on earth he’d rather be.


End file.
